Power of perception I think it's real...

I have this theory that certain objects, as in real life you can touch them objects, in your life only exist to you because they only exist in your reality at that time... You percieve them as being there so they are there, but if you are to forget they exist or percieve them to not exist the object may do just that and seece to exist alltogether...

Have you ever set something down in your room for example, a lighter, and then went to retrieve that said lighter to find it's gone? You look and look and can not find it swearing you left it right there and then where you thought it was to begin with, there it is... As if it dissappeared and then reappeared the instant you established it's existed in the first place...

However, I think if anyone else perceives the object as being there that will not happen because it not only exists in your reality but in their reality as well..

Might explain why some of our things come up missing or maybe it's shadow people messing with us in other dimensions or something, but I have to lean more my way and towards the theory of perception...

reply to post by ElectricUncleSam


I made a post in the thread: "Why must you insist reality is an illusion?", it's on the linked page,

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It has some parralels to what you said in your post, about reality forming because of the observer, and the overlapping of subjective realities.

I thought you might find that thread interesting, if you haven't seen it yet.

Anyways, I like your post and I really think there is truth to the whole "power of perception" idea.

Creativity is never a bad thing.
The only problem I see with the OP's post is these scenarios.

When your fishing, you have no idea what/when/if/where something will take the hook, you can not see your hook in the water, but sometimes something goes for it.

Another one is think about crawling through a pitch black cave if you decided to go sprelunking, crawling on your hands and knees then *splat*... something cold, wet and sticky drips on your forehead. You did not see it coming, yet its there.

I, for one know exactly what your talking about though, I swear inanimate objects grow legs and run away sometimes >.>

This is no different than my thoughts on the sock goblin.

You wash your clothes and transfer them over to the dryer. At which point that little bastard takes only one of the socks from a matching pair. Doesn't mean it actually happens. Doesn't mean that sock went missing because I forgot that one sock out of a pair existed.

Usually, the sock is inside a shirt or fell on the floor.

My wife lost her cell phone a couple weeks ago. We both acknowledged it did indeed exist, but still it never showed up where we last each saw it. Turns out the kids got a hold of it and dropped it behind the couch. Her sister came over and found it for us by accident. Fancy that, someone who didn't perceive the cell phone existing where it was last, didn't acknowledge it's existence at the time, still managed to see it in a place where no on was looking or thought it would be.

I think the power of perception is a great topic. Have you ever considered that we may act out our perceptions. I got to thinking one day about steroypes. Have you ever met someone and at first glance summed them up mentally although you know you really shouldn't but yet turns out your right. I then thought that people may act out how they appear to themselves under sterotypical influence - self programmed or observed over time. Do yourself look at your self in the morror and feel that you look crap, for example badly need a haircut or have spots or the specticles your sporting don't suit your face. You then feel crap yourself and this takes an effect on you - again this is just a theory i have not that i am saying this is true. You tgen re-invent yourself, new clothes maybe, a new hairstyle, shave off your beard ect. get specs that suit you. You then feel good a bout your self but you learn from yourself to if you can realise that it is just peception that made you feel that way to begin with. I think how people peceive them selves has a great way on how they act which would continue the stereotypical format. Look deeper into your re-flection, see beyond how you think other people think you should look. It down to aesthetics and that even leads to the golden ratio. You can be how YOU want to be and not a mirror of what others feel you should be like.- its self belief that i think is key there. If you look deep enough and find your inner self you will realise physical beauty is an illusion and that we create it or admire it to make our emotions happy. Inner beauty is the greater of the too - you can be beutiful on the inside and once you realise that your inner beaty shines though to the physical.

I think this idea can also be described with Schrodinger's Cat theory.
"A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, and the geiger-counter detects an alpha particle, the hammer hits a flask of prussic acid (HCN), killing the cat. The paradox lies in the clever coupling of quantum and classical domains. Before the observer opens the box, the cat's fate is tied to the wave function of the atom, which is itself in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states. Thus, said Schroedinger, the cat must itself be in a superposition of dead and alive states before the observer opens the box, ``observes'' the cat, and ``collapses'' it's wave function."

Basicly it exists in both states until observed, observing the cat's state disturbs it in a way that it must present one of the possible outcomes. Like how the act of observing an atom changes it in some way and the only way to accurately predict what's state it's in, is to agree it must be in all states at once.

:edit: my head hurts after thinking that hard

[edit on 27-9-2008 by Snift]

reply to post by Snift


I read a pretty decent argument against that being a paradox. What most do is assume that we are not part of the equation in that particular scenario. Yet, if the simple act of us opening the box to check on the state of the cat has a direct role in collapsing the wave function, then the act of us doing so ties us into the equation. I'll try and find the article later today, maybe tomorrow. Too lazy right now to be perfectly honest. Gist is, the new iteration of the experiment takes away the paradox as we are also in a state of superposition along with the cat.

Good post about Schrodinger's Cat.

When your fishing, you have no idea what/when/if/where something will take the hook, you can not see your hook in the water, but sometimes something goes for it.

Jeah, but let's say you're fishing in a small pond with crystal clear water. You can see the whole pond and the bottom.

You see that there are no fish in there at all. But if you still decide to fish there, you won't catch any.

When you are fishing in waters where you can't see your hook, or the fishes, it's the fact that you are there to "observe" the possible outcome of catching a fish.

You don't know if there are fish or not, so one possible outcome would be to catch one, but you would not have to actually see the fish with your eyes to catch it.

My head hurts to.

reply to post by enigmania

When you are fishing in waters where you can't see your hook, or the fishes, it's the fact that you are there to "observe" the possible outcome of catching a fish.

That goes against the basic premise of the OP.

You percieve them as being there so they are there, but if you are to forget they exist or percieve them to not exist the object may do just that and seece to exist alltogether...

So, lack of perceiving the fish means the fish do not exist to you. It isn't the perception of an outcome, it's the perception of the actual object itself. And yet at the same time, the OP also says this:

As if it dissappeared and then reappeared the instant you established it's existed in the first place...

In essence, even in your crystal clear water, so long as you establish the existence of the fish, you will catch the fish. So either he is talking about thought forms or he isn't being clear enough. Either way, the universe and things in it exist regardless of you existing to see it. Your parents were here before your birth, they still existed to procreate, else you wouldn't be here. Unless you want to say you created your parents too and just made yourself forget about that as well?

That goes against the basic premise of the OP.

Well, I wasn't defending OP's post. Snift's example also side stepped the basic premise.

When I say, "Let's say....", I'm just presenting him him with a certain picture, to see what he has to say.

I'm not talking to you here. There is no need for you to interfere.

Unless you want to say you created your parents too and just made yourself forget about that as well?

This is just so low.

Again, taking a post of mine, that was not directed to you, from another thread even, completely out of context, just to harass me.

Plus, when I made the comment I clearly added it were my FEELINGS, and ended it with IMO.

Yet you keep pulling it into arguments, like I present it as proof for everything I say.

You are pathetic.

Now shut up and quit derailing the thread.

reply to post by ElectricUncleSam


Are you sure you didn't lose your lighter for another reason? What is this lighter being used for?

No, things do not just pop into and out of existence because you think so. If you have a bad memory then you have a bad memory. Next time get a magnetic lighter and put it on your fridge, I guarantee it will be there.

reply to post by sirnex


It's because you both perceived the phone to exist and probably both perceived it to be lost not gone completely... Plus your children knew the phone existed... All the people who know of the object keep it in existence, hence the reason why your wife's sister found the phone...

reply to post by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal


A lighter is just a good example because when you purchase a lighter it's in a box with many lighters, so once you leave the store, the lighter is really only connected to you... If it's connected to the person who sold it to you it will fade because there wouldn't be any way the store clerk would hold a connection for any reason to the lighter you purchased, nor remember which one you bought... So once you leave the store, and probably a few hours afterward, the lighter becomes only known to you and you alone, and this is when it disappears...

Here is something also to consider, say all your relatives are gone, you have no friends and you are a hermit living in the woods... Just to cover the bases, nobody knows you are alive unless you make contact with them... Could you perceive yourself away?

Originally posted by ElectricUncleSam
Here is something also to consider, say all your relatives are gone, you have no friends and you are a hermit living in the woods... Just to cover the bases, nobody knows you are alive unless you make contact with them... Could you perceive yourself away?

Rriiight, that´s just stretching it.

To assume this to be possible you´d have to be able to not only not acknowledge your own existence, you´d have to deny that you are connected to a body, or not have any thoughts as all since they are connect to you, connected to a body.

Perhaps the proper way to say this is death.


As for the murky pond with fish, I bet that if I take a random bucket with water, there´s a big chance that there won´t be any fish in it. Even though noone has examined that specific water for fish.

I believe these `events` of lost and found to be more of a sort of optical illusion.

Know how some people can't seem to find their calculator when it's right in front of them?

Or what about if they're looking for you, and you're standing in front of them and they still don't see you until you get their attention.

In these cases the object has not disappeared as well, but to the person looking for it, it has (to his knowledge, as he did not perceive it, but I could confirm it's existence and grab it and hand it over to him).

[edit on 28/9/08 by -0mega-]

To expect complete consistency in an ever changing, growing, shifting world just to clarify logical human function is idealistic and impossible.

Things happen all the time and we cannot percieve the outcomes. Sometimes our memories or perceptions can lead/point us in what we think is the right direction though.

It's called life....

No certainty, no repetition and certainly no instructions.

Question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Answer: Any answer I like, yes or no, you could not prove it wrong!

(I have your lighter by the way)

[edit on 28/9/2008 by nerbot]

reply to post by nerbot

Question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Answer: Any answer I like, yes or no, you could not prove it wrong!

I think I could. If there is nobody there, it's just the air vibrating. Sound is the interpretation our ears and brains make of the vibrating air.

If there is nobody there, there is no sound, just vibrating air.

reply to post by enigmania


Tell that to the squirrels that got woken up.

Jeah, that's a classic way to get out of that one.

Ok, as long as there is no living thing around with a capability to turn vibrating air into sound, there is no sound.

Edit to add: Souind only exists in the brain of the beholder.

[edit on 29/9/08 by enigmania]

reply to post by enigmania


So if your definition is true, the only thing that "makes" a sound is something with a brain and ears.

Interesting...but could we not also say that most, if not all things "make" a sound and we are simply converting that sound to generate personal information.

Originally posted by enigmania
If there is nobody there, it's just the air vibrating.

And "vibrating air" is not "sound"?

"Hearing" is a reaction and not an action....

I think the tree makes a sound when it falls....hearing it is optional.

And what if you leave a tape recorder there and listen to the playback later...would there be no sound?

"Sound",.....it's not just in the mind....and I think we are BOTH right.